A Thing That Both Mends and Destroys
by Queen of the Castle
Summary: The cold continues to cling to Sirius long after Azkaban. He'd do almost anything to feel warm again. Dark Harry/Sirius slash fic.


Warnings: Dub-con, questionable sanity, sex between a 16 year old boy and a much older man, dark themes.

Author's Notes: Written in response to the prompt of 'Sirius/Harry - warm'. Goes AU at the end of OotP.

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><p>Even once he was far away from the Dementors' malevolent caresses, he could still almost feel their presence somewhere in the distance. They were still preventing him from being truly happy and were somehow threatening to impose that ever-lurking madness of Azkaban on his mind, even now. After over a decade of their constant influence, he was peripherally aware that some of the instability suffered by all the other prisoners could possibly have begun to ensnare him already. Maybe that was why he felt this way.<p>

With all the Warming Charms he could cast in effect and every fireplace in Grimmauld Place blazing, he was still _so cold_.

Even Remus – the only one remaining of his friends and someone he'd once thought he'd always be able to count upon – couldn't help Sirius the way he once might have been able to. He was too _different_ now. He always used to smile and joke, even straight after the full moon. Now he exuded a kind of growing desolation that only reminded Sirius of every terrible day he'd spent locked in a cell. Not even to get rid of that negative influence on his own sanity would he voluntarily choose to send away the last link he had to his previous life, though.

Well. _Almost_ the last link.

Harry was his one shining light, touched by darkness but far from absorbed into it.

Sirius thought – or at least hoped – that he was just as important to Harry as the boy was to him. After all, Harry had very nearly flung himself beyond the veil itself just to save Sirius' life, and it was only at Dumbledore's behest that he'd grudgingly left Sirius' side at all since. It was very clear that he'd much rather have spent those last useless days after his OWLs were already completed with Sirius instead of wasting time hanging about at school, not to mention that he was as thoroughly unimpressed as Sirius was when Dumbledore ordered Harry to return to his so-called 'family' instead of going straight to Grimmauld Place once school had ended for the year.

When Dumbledore finally saw fit to hand-deliver Harry to the Order's Headquarters – where he should have been all along – halfway through the holidays, Sirius wasted no time wrapping Harry in an almost bone-crunching hug. Harry laughed at the force of it instead of complaining, and he didn't comment on how long it took Sirius to let go.

Sirius loved him for that, among so many other reasons.

Give or take a couple of Order members popping in and out, it was just the two of them in the house for the next couple of days. Sirius had once thought that this place would be much more like a home if it were filled with running children and laughing friends, but he actually found that _this_ was the way he preferred it. Most of the time he forgot all about where he was anyway, too caught up in whatever he and Harry were discussing or playing or even scheming to care much about something as trivial as the walls that surrounded them. Even stuck in that hated house, it was damn near perfect as far as he was concerned.

Then the others arrived, and for a while Sirius was certain that everything good had shattered. Sirius immediately wanted to order them all out of his house, because those quiet afternoons he'd spent with Harry curled up on the moth-eaten sofa were suddenly gone, and when Harry smiled now it wasn't always at him alone, and Sirius _hated_ it.

Thankfully, there was some consolation to keep him sane: they still had the nights.

After everyone drifted off to their rooms to turn in and after Ron in particular fell asleep, without fail, within only a minute or so of his head hitting the pillow, Harry slunk down the winding halls to Sirius' room. These late night visits were a tradition that they'd very quickly fallen into purely because neither of them looked forward to sleeping. It didn't really matter what they actually got up to once Harry was there, of course. They could just sit there and talk, or even do nothing at all. Anything was better than the nightmares.

Tonight they were occupying themselves by playing Exploding Snap. Sirius was quick to realise that he'd better put up a Silencing Charm, and not just to stop the inevitable booming of each 'snap' from waking up the other occupants of the house either. The sounds of Harry's amusement at how terrible Sirius was at the game ("But I swear I was good at it once!" Sirius insisted with a pout) echoed around the room almost as loudly as the bangs. The laughter was infectious, even for Sirius, who had noticed he seemed to smile almost as little as Remus these days anytime Harry wasn't in the room with him. It was a truly welcome change to feel so carefree occasionally, and it was no surprise to him that Harry was always the one to bring it about.

Sirius playfully shoved Harry clean off the bed when he teasingly pointed out how tiny Sirius' stack of cards was getting yet again after Harry's twelfth win in a row. Harry let out a startled yelp as he fell, but then he snorted and retaliated by grabbing Sirius' ankle and tugging him over the edge as well. They ended up tangled together in a heap, half wrestling each other, though for dominance or to escape no one but the two of them could say. Sirius thought Harry was probably straining to get away so that he could attempt to regain whatever amount of dignity a teenage boy could ever lay claim to, but personally he thought that sort of thing was overrated. He was more than prepared to look stupid rolling around on the ground when it was this fun. Maybe his animagus form had made him used to that sort of thing.

Though he had no intention of letting Harry up, it wasn't by Sirius' conscious design that Harry ended up with his back to the ground and writhing between Sirius' legs, the boy's wrists handily pinned over his head in a tight one-handed hold. After Harry battled for quite a while to try to pull himself free under his own steam, he sighed and announced that he would concede as long as doing so didn't involve having to lie and say that Sirius was a great Snap player after all.

Sirius didn't hear any of that. His attention was otherwise engaged.

He'd forgotten what it was like. Oh, he had no idea how he could have forgotten something like _this_, but he had. Two hot bodies pressed together, each person breathing hard and barely managing to contain the thrum of that exhilarating adrenaline-fuelled reaction within their own skin...

Thoughts of things like this had probably been the first thing to go when the Dementors had started feasting on him, he realised, for they would have been the happiest memories he'd possessed, by far. There was nothing quite like it, and there was nothing more likely to permanently drive away the cold void of unhappiness he'd been fighting against for what seemed like forever.

He'd never wanted anything more in his entire life.

That tiny part of him that understood the weight of responsibility knew he shouldn't do it. He shouldn't touch this still-too-young boy who looked to him like a kind of father-figure, and he should definitely never take advantage of that boy's implicit trust. He should force himself to stand up and walk away, and to never be alone with Harry again until he knew that he had himself properly under control. But after going so long without happiness, how was he really supposed to turn it away when he was so sure it was now within reach?

Without letting go of Harry's wrists or lifting his weight off the boy's hips and letting him up, the fingers of his free hand found the hem of Harry's shirt and dipped underneath. He pulled the material up to reveal pale skin, wiry black hairs arrowing down to beneath the jeans and the tiniest tantalising glimpse of underwear.

"Sirius, what..."

Sirius had no idea if Harry said anything further after that. If so, then _he_ certainly didn't catch it, though he did manage to hear with perfect clarity the string of whimpers and gasps and, finally, the long moan that escaped the boy's lips when he came.

With the image of Harry's almost pained expression of completion so fresh, it didn't take Sirius long to paint his own release over the canvass of Harry's skin.

He cast _Aguamenti_ and wet the lower half of the shirt he'd discarded earlier, using the damp material to clean them both up. Then he pulled Harry up with him onto the bed, under the covers; he thought that they might have far more of a chance of passing the night in dreamless sleep if they were huddled together for comfort. Besides, he had no intention of letting go of Harry any time soon after what they'd just shared.

As Harry's cheek pressed against him and his messy hair tickled the underside of Sirius' chin, Sirius smiled and closed his eyes, savouring the moment.

Hot tears pooled on Sirius' bare chest, eventually rolling down the curve of his skin, but Sirius didn't notice.

The only thing he was aware of was that he was finally warm again.

~FIN~


End file.
